2003-12-27

OK, so Christmas is over with: I achieved deep spiritual communion with my couch and watched many crappy videos; my catatonia was interrupted by phone calls from well-wishing friends and family often enough to keep me from drifting into a permanent vegetative state. Success all around.

But now, I have a whole week off work, as the Minister�s office is closed for the holidays. A whole week of free time, and no budget to go out of town. I haven�t had a week to sit around at home and do nothing since�junior high, now that I think about it. Given my fierce and irrational love of total inactivity, you�d think I�d be overjoyed at the opportunity to lie around and grow moss, but actually I feel sort of lost. I don�t know what to do with myself. I�ve been starting my days with bursts of productivity � walk dog! Go for a run! Wash dishes! Finish articles! � and then drifting into a sort of confused fugue state somewhere in mid-afternoon, flipping channels until I can�t take any more �Trading Spaces� and �Law and Order� reruns, and going to bed around ten o�clock like an old lady. There is no order in my universe! Seven more days of this and I�ll be shambling to the corner store in my bathrobe and talking to myself. Uh, more often.

I�ve been watching a lot of movies, of course. Yesterday I went to see Dances With Ninjas � sorry, that�s The Last Samurai � because I�d seen everything else that was playing at the theatre. Well, except Paycheck, but yeah, sorry Mr. Affleck � give me a call when you make it off the �new releases� shelf at Blockbuster. It sucked much less than I thought it would. Cheesy and predictable, of course, but less histrionically sentimental than I�d feared. Tom Cruise did a serviceable job of his role, which consisted mostly of looking unwashed and sitting in steely-eyed silence. At least, I think it was supposed to be �steely-eyed silence� � his long pauses were sort of ambiguous, evidently intended to convey brooding intensity, but sometimes seeming more like he�d forgotten his line. Whichever. Swords! Head-chopping! Sexy Japanese men in silly skirts! Two hours of something to do! Thumbs up.